Cancer Ward

About “Cancer Ward”

Cancer Ward is a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It features a central character, Oleg Kostoglotov, who, like the author, experienced life in a Soviet concentration camp and later a cancer ward. The book was published in the United Kingdom in 1968 and established Solzhenitsyn as Russia's greatest living novelist. However, the novel was never openly published in the Soviet Union. Critics have noted that the book offers a unique analysis of the corrupting power of the police state, a theme that had not been explored in Soviet literature before.